


Half the Shine

by Nabielka



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28457484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: Jokaste has made up her mind to meet Kastor. Kyrina prepares with her.
Relationships: Jokaste/Kastor (Captive Prince), Jokaste/Kyrina (Captive Prince)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9
Collections: Captive Prince Secret Santa 2020





	Half the Shine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melancholicpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melancholicpie/gifts).



Up went her hair, plaited and curled around her head. Heavy, like a crown. 

Kyrina stepped back, her hands falling away. Jokaste leaned forward, away from her touch, and turned her head a little to the mirror, her hand going up to her face. 

There was still a little shadow beneath her eyes; sometimes it was difficult to gauge it, though Kyrina was getting better. Jokaste had been at court four months now. In the Aegina, she had never suffered from them, nor save for certain ceremonies had she cared so to make herself ornamental. In the Aegina, she had not had two princes to turn to, to draw her aside after the court functions ended in the early hours and stretch the day longer still. 

“Lady, if you turn to me again,” Kyrina began, her voice falling away at the shake of Jokaste’s head. She did so very slightly, so as not to disturb her hair. 

“No need,” she said, and caught Kyrina’s smile. “Kastor won’t mind the shadows.” The previous night – the morning – she had spent with his brother, before he had ridden out with a company for army exercises. The king may have accepted for the first time since the war the accreditation of a Veretian ambassador, but few in the court thought the border secure. “It’ll please him to think I find his brother tiring.” 

He would not think to wonder if perhaps the same applied to himself. In truth, he was not a bad man. He spoke more on his father’s policies than his brother, and more critically too, which she enjoyed. He agreed with her that the way in which certain taxes were calculated was not equitable and needed revision, that the minor estates in the ancient provinces that had formed the core of Akielos from Queen Kydippe’s reign were unduly burdened compared to their equivalents in lands more newly attached to the kingdom. Damianos never talked like that. To him the new provinces were a reflection of his father’s glory in holding them together. 

And yet the nights stretched long. She would recline by his side at the banquet, and he would talk and at times interrupt her to give orders to the slaves. The slaves would play and sing and then kneel by his side for a stroke of their hair in commendation. That was true of both of them. He would take her to his quarters, and then too he would talk, but now with his hands drifting across her body. Sometimes the slaves still be there, which seemed not to come to his notice, but which she struggled to forget. She could not think that the experience, taken as a whole, would be so very different with the other brother. 

Then at least she would return here, to these rooms, to Kyrina. Kyrina, who slept so peacefully that she would scarcely stir at her coming, but would come awake with a murmur at the pressure of Jokaste’s hand against her shoulder, and smile at her despite the disturbance. The thought of that would sustain her, past the scratch of Kastor’s beard and the movement in the corner of her eye. 

It seemed, yet, very far away. In a flash of nervousness, she grasped at Kyrina’s hand, warm and unburdened with jewels. “Wait, tonight,” and knew as she spoke that it was a selfish impulse, that her father, who comforted himself for the fact that his estate was modest with the reassurance that his tenants were warmer and better fed than that of the kyros, would find this a weakness greater than any she had shown at court, would grimace more than she knew he did at the cost of keeping her at court. 

The shame of this made her flush, but was not strong enough to make her take her words back. With Kastor, as with Damianos, she would not be able to show any hesitation, any worry, save that which to reassure her about would please him. 

Kyrina too had gone a little pink. She ducked her head. 

“Of course, my lady. All night, if you will it.” Her eyes, which shone bright like Kastor’s, remained fixed long on Jokaste.


End file.
